5th homicide of year fatal
to 37-year-old
By Bob High
Staff Writer
Alexander “Boo” King, 37, formerly of Chadbourn and residing at times along the Stanley Circle area just outside Brunswick’s town limits, died Wednesday afternoon from unexplained gunshot wounds.
Sheriff’s Detective Sgt. David Nobles said the exact cause of King’s death would not be known until an autopsy is performed today (Thursday) at the State Medical Examiner’s facilities in Chapel Hill.
King died in the New Hanover Regional Medical Center where he had been transferred from Columbus Regional Healthcare.
The homicide is the fifth of the year in Columbus County, including two in the Town of Fair Bluff.
Sheriff’s deputies responded to Stanley Circle, a gravel loop road leading off Bish Ford Road and known as a location of extensive drug dealing, at 10:13 a.m. Wednesday after a report of a disturbance with a “gun being pulled,” Nobles said.
A sheriff’s report by Deputy Joe Byrd showed that King had called 9-1-1 and reported that he had been threatened.
At 10:35 a.m., officers were notified that several shots had been fired from the Stanley Circle area. When deputies arrived they found King lying in the yard of a residence at 117 Bish Ford Road, the detective added.
Whiteville Rescue Unit workers responded to the scene – the last house on Bish Ford Road before the gravel Stanley Circle begins -- and took King to the local hospital.
“We’re investigating details of the shooting. There was possibly an argument outside the home where King was found, but it’s not completely clear at this point,” Nobles said.
Nobles declined to release the name of the person suspected of being involved in King’s death. “There’s been no arrest,” he pointed out.
The detective said 20 to 30 people gathered at locations along Stanley Circle to watch as detectives and SBI Agent Josh Hickman interviewed possible witnesses and others who might have some knowledge of what took place or led to the shooting.
The Sheriff’s Drug Unit, in a related move, made a search-warrant raid on the mobile home at 159 Stanley Circle and more than a dozen weapons and drugs were seized.
Judy Arthur Moore, 45, already facing charges of possession of cocaine for the purpose of sale after arrests in June and October, was charged in connection with the weapons and more than four ounces of crack cocaine found during the search.
Charges against Moore include two counts of trafficking in cocaine – by possession and manufacture, possession of cocaine for the purpose of sale, possession of marijuana for the purpose of sale, and maintaining her home as a place to keep and sell drugs. Other charges are pending.
The previous four homicides this year were on Jan. 14, June 1, June 11 and Sept. 14.
Mickey Ray Hayes, 59, of Peanut Worley Road, Cerro Gordo, was killed in January; James Ervin Dixon, 41, of Yam Lane, Tabor City, died from a rifle shot on June 1; Allen Jerome Tyler, 22, of Fair Bluff, was the June 11 victim; and Jason Arthur, 27, of Fair Bluff was killed in September.
Both victims from Fair Bluff were killed in the town where they lived.
Bryon Leneau Hooks, 20, of Cherry Grove Road, Cerro Gordo, is charged with murder in the Hayes death; Levern Kelly, 55, of Bermuda Bay Lane, Tabor City, is charged in the Dixon killing; and Gilbert Douglas “Junior McMillan, 26, of Hamer Street, Fair Bluff, was charged in the Arthur death.
There were no charges filed against Mark Bouvier McKay, 42, of Dessie Road, Chadbourn, in Tyler’s death, based on evidence that Tyler shot first and McKay returned gunfire.
